Border Songs Now in Paperback

One of my favorite books from last year was Jim Lynch's Border Songs. It hardly seems like a full year has gone by since I read it but today is the day that Border Songs hits the bookstores in paperback.

This is what I had to say about the book in June 2009.

I'll repeat that fans of the cult classic Confederacy of Dunces will almost certainly enjoy Border Songs because the main characters of the two books could be cousins. This one is fun and Jim reminded me that it was picked as one of the best books of 2009 by the Washington Post, Toronto Star and others. If you enjoy unusual novels, you should take a look at this one.

Careless in Red

Careless in Red opens with the still-grieving Thomas Lynley making his way along the coast of Cornwall on foot. Lynley has been walking so long, in fact, that he could more easily pass for a vagrant or homeless person than he could for the highly respected Detective Superintendent of New Scotland Yard he used to be. Since Lynley wants no part of New Scotland Yard, or anything else regarding his former life, he prefers it that way. But, as luck would have it, he stumbles upon the body of a teenage boy who has apparently fallen from the cliff below which Lynley is walking. When it becomes clear that this is a case of murder, rather than accident, Lynley will find himself one of the early suspects in the investigation.

Detective Inspector Bea Hannaford has a murder to solve but she does not feel that she has been given the proper tools to solve the case. The local policemen assigned to help her on the case do not impress her at all, so she is determined to make the most of having a former star of New Scotland Yard on the case. Hannaford refuses to let Lynley leave the area and convinces him that, since he is there anyway, he may as well give her some help. Hannaford, though, gets more than she bargained by forcibly recruiting Thomas Lynley into the investigation and she soon realizes that he will, indeed, help investigate the murder - but only on his own terms.

Elizabeth George writes big books and this is another whopper, coming in at 623 pages. It is filled with complex side plots and back stories involving a wide array of characters all the way from a grandfather trying to raise his overly religious granddaughter to a Greek expatriate sleeping her way through Cornwall’s men (married or not, young or old) at an astonishing pace. Some of the side plots and much of the back story involve the murdered boy, Santo Kerne, a young man who had more than his share of enemies for someone so young. While some might see the multiple characters and stories as a distraction, fans of George will revel in the way she gets so deeply into the lives of such different people and will be impressed with the way she tidies everything up by the book’s end.

Longtime fans of the series are, however, likely to be somewhat disappointed that Thomas Lynley is little more than a side character in Careless in Red or that Barbara Havers does not even appear in the story until about its mid-point. Havers, though, is Havers and when she does show up, Lynley’s character seems to change for the better and the whole pace of the book seems to sharpen.

Note that the unabridged audio book version of Careless in Red is some 18 CDs in length and that total listening time is something close to 20 hours in total. This is quite a challenge unless one has an extremely long commute or, as I did, brings the book along on a road trip. Narrator John Lee, who does an excellent job on the recording, is consistent throughout and does a remarkable job on a variety of British accents.

Fans of the series will appreciate this one; newcomers, perhaps not as much. The good news is that Thomas Lynley is recovering from the tragedy he suffered in With No One as Witness and that he should be more his old self in the next book in the series.

Rated at: 4.0

Twilight Books and Middle School Neck-Biters

Here's something from the "Just When You Think You've Seen It All" news category.

It seems that the vampire craze sweeping the middle schools of America has spawned a new way for those students to show their "affection" for one another.

The Washington Post has this little blurb about the new craziness:

So, here’s the latest vampire-related trend apparently sweeping through middle schools: Some teens are biting each other, usually on the neck, as a way to declare love or friendship.

And, of course, they are documenting the act and slapping it up on Facebook for their parents to see. CBS' Early Show reported Wednesday that the “troubling new trend among teens” is likely the result of the booming popularity of the Twilight book and movie series and HBO's True Blood.

Good, bad, or silly? I'll leave that to you to decide, but who said books were no longer relevant to young people?

Best of 2010, Update 22

I haven't done a Best of 2010 update since the night I was sitting in an Owensboro, KY, motel (June 23) waiting on a jam session to get cranked up out by the pool, so let's see what happens (obviously, I do these on the fly, folks).

Up for consideration this time are 5 novels: Taroko Gorge (Jacob Ritari), Whiter Than Snow (Sandra Dallas), Home, Away (Jeff Gillenkirk), Careless in Red (Elizabeth George) and Running Dark (Jamie Freveletti). I'm a little surprised that my nonfiction reading is down this year but, for a variety of reasons, 2010 is rapidly turning a year of novels for me.

So, after due consideration, this is what the fiction list looks like after 52 fiction books read:

1. Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese (novel)
2. Matterhorn - Karl Marlantes (Vietnam War novel)
3. The Calligrapher's Daughter - Eugenia Kim (novel)
4. Remarkable Creatures - Tracy Chevalier (historical fiction)
5. Drood - Dan Simmons (historical fiction)
6. The Secret Speech - Tom Rob Smith (historical thriller)
7. Far Cry - John Harvey (police procedural)
8. Home, Away - Jeff Gillenkirk (baseball novel)
9. Whiter Than Snow - Sandra Dallas (historical fiction)
10.Careless in Red - Elizabeth George (police procedural)

And the nonfiction list from a total of 15 read remains:

1. Lies My Mother Never Told Me - Kaylie Jones (memoir)
2. Man of Constant Sorrow - Ralph Stanley & Eddie Dean (biography)
3. Losing My Cool - Thomas Chatterton Williams (memoir)
4. Jane's Fame - Claire Harman (on the evolution of Jane Austen's reputation)
5. The Opposite Field - Jesse Katz - (memoir)
6. The Tennis Partner - Abraham Verghese (1998 memoir)
7. Game Change - John Heilemann & Mark Halperin (political nonfiction)
8. Damp Squid - Jeremy Butterfield (on the evolution of the English language)
9. Unfinished Business - Lee Kravitz (memoir)
10. Top of the Order - Sean Manning, Ed. (baseball essays)

Three of the five books crack the list: Home, Away at number 8, Whiter Than Snow at number 9 and Careless in Red at 10, squeezing The Devil Amongst the Lawyers, A Fair Maiden and Johnny Porno off the list for good. So these are the best 20 books of the 67 books I've read so far this year, with almost half a year to go. Now for some nonfiction...

Taroko Gorge

Jacob Ritari’s debut novel, Taroko Gorge, offers a new take on the classic whodunit mystery. In the classic manner, Ritari has placed his murder victims and their likely killer in a self-contained setting, one from which no one is likely to have come or gone unseen. The setting is Taiwan’s Taroko Gorge, a tourist attraction within one of that island-country’s national parks. When three Japanese students (fifteen-year-old girls) who are in Taiwan on a school trip suddenly disappear, the number of suspects is rather limited – and the finger-pointing soon begins.

Among those at the park center to visit the spectacular gorge, are a middle-aged American reporter and his photographer, a young man who copes with the disappearance of the girls by getting drunk – and staying that way for most of the book. Other possible suspects include a busload of Japanese students, their teacher/trip guide, and employees of the park itself. When the local police, led by a tough old sergeant, arrive, however, it seems that the Americans draw most of his attention. When the girls are not found by the end of the day, the Americans, along with four of the students and their teacher, volunteer to remain in the park office overnight to help the police in the search planned for early the next morning.

Ritari tells his story through the first person accounts of several different narrators, including reporter Peter Neils, the police sergeant, the class student leader, and a student who sees one of the missing girls as her romantic rival for the potential affections of several of the boys in the class. As would be expected, based on how different the speakers are, their narratives are uneven in content and reliability. Each person knows something the others do not and most seem to have a legitimate reason for feeling guilty about the disappearance of the missing girls.

Taroko Gorge is long on atmosphere and character, especially when an unexpected storm drenches the park with a blinding rain that lasts for hours, again delaying the search for the girls. Jacob Ritari seems to know Japan and Taiwan well and, by getting inside the heads of his various characters, he reveals much about cultural differences and similarities. Interestingly, each group (Taiwanese, Japanese, and American) seems to struggle a bit with its own prejudices and inherent distrust of the other groups – but in a way, each group admires the others. Ritari does seem to struggle a bit when he tries to speak as a 15-year-old Japanese girl but, perhaps, this is more a reflection of the empty-headed character he has created than it is of the author’s writing. He certainly fares much better with the voices of the Taiwanese police sergeant, the American reporter, and the young Japanese class leader.

This is an interesting first novel and Jacob Ritari has placed himself on my map as a young writer I will be watching for more from in the future.

Rated at: 3.5

(Review Copy provided by Publisher)

Patterson first to top one million in e-book sales

Why am I not surprised? Not at all surprised, but a bit disappointed to see that e-book readers are buying the same old stuff being churned out by the book machine otherwise known as James Patterson.

I'll bet Mr. Patterson even wrote a few of the titles himself rather than slapping his name in big print atop those of the writers who did all the grunt work on his co-written titles.

Hachette Book Group said the best-selling author of "Kiss the Girls," "Along Came a Spider" and other titles in the Alex Cross series has sold a total of 1.14 million e-books.

"Things have really changed in the digital space," Patterson said in a statement.

"With more and more people reading on iPads, Kindles, and Nooks, taking time to create interesting, user-friendly, enhanced e-book editions is becoming more and more important," he said.

"And if e-books get people who might otherwise not be reading to pick up a book, then that makes me happy," he said.